by Sarah Craighead Dedmon

How to repair the Machias dike has been under discussion for more than 10 years, but the need to repair it is becoming more urgent. The dike apparatus — four box culverts built with wooden cribbing — is rapidly decaying, made worse by recent storm surge and heavy rainfall events. The Maine Department of Transportation (DOT) ranks the dike culverts’ condition 4 on a scale of 0 to 9, citing large cracks, and loss of mortar.